546US1
Unit: $$U9
[08-22-08 14:08:29] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 74 (2005)
77
Per Curiam
evant statute forbade, see id., at 351. And it is further doubtful whether the doctrine of constitutional doubt per mits such a flatly countertextual interpretation of what the Ohio Supreme Court said, see Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52, 59–60 (1997). But assuming all that, Ohio law at the time of respondent’s offense provided fully adequate notice of the applicability of transferred intent. The rele vant mens rea provision in § 2903.01(D) required only that “[n]o person shall be convicted of aggravated murder unless he is specifically found to have intended to cause the death of another.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2903.01(D) (Anderson 1982) (emphasis added). Respondent’s intention to kill his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend plainly came within this pro vision. There was no reason to read “another” (countertex tually) as meaning only “the actual victim,” since the doc trine of transferred intent was “firmly rooted in Ohio law.” State v. Sowell, 39 Ohio St. 3d 322, 332, 530 N. E. 2d 1294, 1305 (1988) (citing Wareham v. State, 25 Ohio St. 601 (1874)). Respondent could not plausibly claim unfair surprise that the doctrine applied in his case. See Lanier, supra, at 269–270 (requiring, as adequate notice for due process purposes, only “reasonable warning,” rather than fundamentally similar prior cases). The foregoing provision was in effect at the time of re spondent’s crime in 1986. The Sixth Circuit reasoned, how ever, that the following subsequent clause in the version of § 2903.01(D) that existed in 1986 foreclosed transferred intent in this case: “If a jury in an aggravated murder case is instructed that a person who commits or attempts to commit any offense listed in division (B) of this section may be in ferred, because he engaged in a common design with others to commit the offense by force or violence or be cause the offense and the manner of its commission would be likely to produce death, to have intended to
